Panthers roll 52-15 at Harlan

HARLAN — Creston/Orient-Macksburg knocked a team from the unbeaten ranks with a decisive 52-15 victory over Harlan Thursday night.

Despite a lineup missing two varsity regulars, the Panthers won 11 of the 14 matches, picking up bonus points in eight of them, including falls by Tayler Pettit, Keaton Hulett, Gage Cheers and Zack Peppmeier. The Cyclones forfeited to three-time state champion Jake Marlin at 145 pounds.

Harlan fell out of a share of first place in the Hawkeye 10, dropping to 3-1 in the conference and 8-1 overall. Creston/O-M improved to 4-1 and 7-1. League leaders are Glenwood (5-0) and Lewis Central (2-0).

From the regular Panther lineup, 126-pounder Spencer Wray is out for the season with surgery for thumb ligament damage, and 220-pounder Cole Tanner is sidelined by a lingering knee injury that flared up in the December Kansas City Stampede.

Still, the only winners for Harlan were pins by heavyweight Jordan Siebert and running back Chris Hopkins — down to 113 pounds this year — and a decision by Wil Breach at 106 pounds.

“I thought it was a good victory,” coach Darrell Frain said. “Going in, we thought they were favored in five matches, we were favored in five, and four were tossups. The wins by Pettit and Adamson were upsets for us, and we came out OK in the tossups.”

Pettit secured a takedown and locked up Nick Kornischuk in a cradle for a 34-second pin at 160 pounds.

With Tanner out, Seth Maitlen moved up to 220 pounds and earned a hard-fought 3-2 victory over Tyler Johannsen. Cheers moved down to take Wray’s spot at 126 and gained a first-period fall. That allowed Joey Huntington to compete at 132, and he racked up a 16-0 technical fall. Zack Peppmeier closed the night with a pin at 138, as Marlin was in the lineup at 145 for the night.

At 113 pounds, Wyatt Thompson had Hopkins in a nearfall predicament, but the Cyclone wrestler bridged, and turned Thompson to his back for the fall.

Action starts at 11 a.m. in the Panther Invitational Saturday, rather than 10 a.m. as previously published. It will most likely be set up in round-robin format, Frain said, but it’s possible with enough entries that they could draw up full eight-man championship brackets in each weight class, with finals slated for late afternoon.

Even in round-robin, pairings would be set up for top seeds to meet each other in the final round of the day.